Along The Way

Up Close and Personal

I’ve always enjoyed shooting photos of ag-planes as they lay chemicals over a farm field. On this morning knowing the location of an airfield where a Air Tractor ag-plane operates from, I drove out to the airfield and waited till the ag-plane took-off, following the plane to a nearby canola field where he began spraying.

It can be quite challenging to shoot ag-plane photos, as it is imperative that you do not have too high a shutter speed set on your camera, or you will stop the propeller's motion giving off the appearance of the airplane falling from the sky.

Problem is that if your shutter speed is set too slow, not only will the propeller be blurred, but the plane will be blurry as well, an image headed for the trash bin. With the right shutter speed set to blur the prop, panning smoothly with the airplane is a priority to keep the airplane in focus. Of course it goes without saying that you also need a camera with an auto-focus system capable of locking on to the airplane and keeping the focus.

Also challenging in this photo, as the pilot commenced his run on the canola field, I wanted the pilot's face visible in the cockpit, so the challenge was to not have his head partially blocked by the framework of the roofline of the airplane.

So bottom line is to watch your shutter speed, keep the propeller blurred, keep the airplane sharply focused, make sure the pilot is visible, all this while the ag-plane is coming at you at speeds approaching 130-160 mph in his pass across the field.

It can be somewhat intimidating as your looking through the viewfinder, this ag-plane coming at you, the gas-turbine engine howling as the propeller cuts a hole in the wind approaching where your standing near the ag-plane's path.

Expand the photo for a closer look.....

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